1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information terminal, an information processing system, and methods of controlling the same.
2. Related Background Art
As small-sized information terminals each equipped with a hard disk drive, there are a still image reproducing apparatus, a moving image reproducing apparatus, and a music reproducing apparatus. In some cases, such a small-sized information terminal as a mass storage class device is connected to a personal computer as a host terminal by USB (Universal Serial Bus) 2.0. When being connected by USB, a hard disk drive on the information terminal side is controlled by the personal computer as a host side.
When the hard disk drive of the information terminal is controlled by the host side as just described, it is very difficult that a CPU itself of the information terminal accesses to this hard disk drive since a malfunction occurs in terms of a system. Therefore, while data is being transferred from the host terminal to the hard disk drive of the information terminal, the CPU of the information terminal cannot access the hard disk drive. Accordingly, for example, while data is being transferred from the host terminal to the hard disk drive in the information terminal, neither still images, nor moving images, nor music files can be reproduced on the information terminal side.
According to Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2003-99207 (Patent Document 1), even while data is being transferred from the personal computer as the host terminal to the hard disk drive of the information terminal, the data transmitted from the host terminal can be immediately confirmed in the information terminal, but this is nothing more than a situation where the data transmitted from the host terminal to the information terminal is outputted as it is to an output unit. Hence, this does not mean that access to data stored in the hard disk drive is positively accepted while a large amount of data is being transferred from the host terminal to the information terminal.
However, recently, the number of pixels of a still image or a moving image is increasing, and the size of data transferred from the personal computer as the host terminal to the information terminal is also increasing. Therefore, if the CPU of the information terminal can access the hard disk drive even during data transfer, it becomes possible to confirm the contents of already-transferred data and delete data, which is convenient for users.